There's a giant rodent in my river!!!

When I was a boy no one had ever heard of a beaver ever being in the little miami. According the ODNR the last beavers had been extirpated from Ohio in the 1830's. Even in the records I found of the first settlers in the late 1700's reported them as rare. This was because the Indians who lived along the Little Miami had already just about trapped them out to trade with the white man. Before the fur trade it seemed beaver had thrived all up and down the river.

Then in the late eighties I began to hear rumors of their return. I remember on a winter fishing trip to the Ohio River seeing a beaver swim by and feeling lucky just to have caught a glimpse of one. From what I understand a pair swam out of the Ohio and set up house just upstream of Magrish River Lands Preserve and the rest is as they say history. Now it's allmost impossible not to run accross beaver sign anywhere you happen to look anywhere along the river.

Beavers in the mainstream of the Little Miami dont have to build a dam for safety so they just dig a den in the bank. But up the tributaries are now scattered quite a few. The dam pictured here is just a few hundred yards away from the main river in a marsh at Spring Valley. The beaver photos them selves are from all up and down the river.

An adult beaver can reach four feet in length and weigh over 60 pounds. Beavers mate for life and usually have a litter of around four kits. These stay with their parents for up to two years before setting off to establish their own colony. One odd fact is that after the babies are born the male beaver will move out and live in his own den for about a month then move back in after that and take a very active role in raising the young. A beaver has several adaptations for its aquatic lifestyle. Besides it's large, flat scaled tail and webbed hind feet, a beaver has oversized lungs that enable it to stay underwater for ten minutes or more plus valves in it's ears and nose to keep water out and an extra set of clear eyelids to let the beaver see while underwater.A beaver has 20 teeth, four curved front teeth for gnawing, and sixteen back teeth for chewing. The four front teeth never quit growing as long as the beaver lives and the beaver keeps them worn down by his constant gnawing of wood for food and dam construction. Beavers are mostly nocturnal and are seen mostly right at dawn or dusk.



































Some trail camera photos at night.